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Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Father Corridan - The Real Waterfront Priest

The photo above is of John "Pete" Corridan, the
"Waterfront Priest,” testifying before a Senate Commerce Committee
investigating waterfront crime in the late 1940’s.

If you have ever seen the film “On the Waterfront” with Karl
Malden as the crusading Priest Father Barry, then you need to know that he was
not a totally fictitious character. As a matter of fact, that soliloquy which
he gives in the hold of the ship where Dugan is killed by the falling cargo was
actually spoken by a Father Corridan who was the real life inspiration for the
film version of the Priest.

Here is the portion of one of Father Corridan’s addresses to
the men which inspired Bud Schulberg’s version;

“I suppose some people would smirk at the thought of Christ
in the shape-up. It is about as absurd as the fact that He carried carpenter’s
tools in His hands and earned His bread by the sweat of His brow. As absurd as
the fact that Christ redeemed all men irrespective of their race, color, or
station in life. It can be absurd only to those of whom Christ has said,
‘Having eyes, they see not; and having ears, they hear not.’ Because they don’t
want to see or hear. Christ also said, ‘If you do it to the least of mine, you
do it to me.’ So Christ is in the shape-up.”

Father Corridan gave the speech at a meeting in the Union
trade school across the river in New Jersey, not in the hold of a cargo ship.
But his words were almost identical. "The speech was written more by
Father Corridan than me," writer Bud Schulberg said. "Eighty percent
of it was his words."

Schulberg was soon treated to a tour of the waterfront by one
of Corridan's longshoremen, a man named Arthur "Brownie" Brown. Schulberg
became an admirer of the Priest and described him as “the greatest individual I
have ever known.”